1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, a method of controlling an image processing apparatus, and a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Art
The effectiveness of WEB techniques in workflows of offices has gained more recognition due to the versatility and convenience of the techniques. As a result of progress in digitization of paper documents, situations of uploading digital documents to WEB sites are increasing. For example, in a workflow for billing a company for transportation expenses at a WEB site, a receipt may be updated to the site.
In general, in order to upload a paper document to a WEB site, at least the following two steps of operations are required, thus forcing the user to spend much time and effort. The user operates a personal computer (PC) to scan a paper document using an image reading apparatus connected to that PC so as to convert the document into digital data, thus retrieving the document into the PC as image data. The user then operates the PC to upload the retrieved image data via a WEB browser on the PC.
On the other hand, it is possible to provide a unique system for directly connecting the image reading apparatus and WEB site on both the sides of the apparatus and WEB site. However, for this purpose, the investments of vendors and manufacturers are required, and it is difficult to maintain compatibility between the apparatus and site to provide the unique system.
Hence, an image forming apparatus which can solve such a problem has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-149320). This reference has proposed a mechanism in which a button for “transmitting an image to a site” is displayed on an operation unit based on an HTML document received from a WEB site, a scanner scans a document in response to the operation of that button, and generated image data is transmitted to the WEB site.
An overview of the processing of the image forming apparatus according to this proposal will be described below with reference to FIGS. 11A and 11B. Upon reception of an HTML file 1101 shown in FIG. 11A from an external apparatus via a network, the image forming apparatus displays a display window 1102 shown in FIG. 11B on its screen. If the user operates a setting button 1103, the image forming apparatus can switch the content of the display window 1102 and can display a setting window associated with document scanning. If the user presses a transmission button 1104, the image forming apparatus generates image data of a document by scanning the document using its scanner, and transmits the image data to the WEB site.